“Home” by Warsan Shire

The power of poetry; the power of words:

no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well

your neighbors running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it’s not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied

no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough

the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off

or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i’ve become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here

Milk

skin too thin
to deal with the seal
of a broken fate
that penetrates
deeper than glass:
thrown and broken,
left for cleaning
with naked hands.

Deteriorating Conditions

Swooping down, she pulled the sky
so high I could see tomorrow.

Giving me wind and a wing, and boy
did I fly!

Until, the sun set, the tailwind
crossed, the skies darkened.

She threw up mountainous thunderheads,
they cut like a shard of glass.

A howling chill cast, from the walls she
shattered in an un-forecasted storm.

The heavy blanket shot
over my heart won't warm the chill,

until the sun rises.

Rose Colored Glasses beneath Blue Skies

Standing in the middle of the road
at noon, in June,
the light is paralyzing. Everything shines
in a glow of possibility.
The beauty is surreal, like lies
in a halo; where
love waits, always waits, beyond
the next sunrise.

Re-lay-shun Ships:

past the breakers,
beyond the let downs
and blow ups; erupting
in swirls of chaos,

of swaying hips
and pursed lips,
floating out in
a sea of noise.

My Soul's Instinct

Every breath my lungs fight to take betrays my soul's instinct to find a way out; whether it be with alcohol, some varying form of dissociation, or a hard collision with a tree by the side of the road is of little importance, thankfully.  I've fought these demons before -- but I thought the birth of my son 17 years ago had saved me from ever having to fight them again. I was wrong.

It began six weeks ago or so when one sunny afternoon as I sat at my desk working on whatever project was at hand, I caught an ever brief glimpse at the horizon's slow descend into darkness.  It didn't really register within me at the time what was coming because that horizon hadn't come into view in so long. Looking back now, I should have stopped everything and walked away to take a break.  I've been saying for months that I needed to take a vacation from life and check into a hotel room for a few days and just write.  Since there aren't any hotels that allow guest to stay with only a payment of a thank you and a smile -- I was unable to take that break I instinctively knew I needed. Instead, I busied myself with more and more projects; working toward my goal of saving the world -- forgetting myself.

Within the last four weeks I have googled, "how to commit suicide and make it look like an accident" twice.  As I said earlier, luckily my soul's instinct to escape doesn't seem to matter how it escapes, so long as it escapes.  So, I make a drink involving bourbon in some fashion and put my headphones on blasting Nirvana, or Ozzy, or Seether, or anything loud and hard -- escaping, if only for a moment or two.  Sadly, with drama lurking in every corner -- the reprieve is short lived and not nearly cathartic enough. Defining the drama is unnecessary for this current piece -- drama is drama no matter what shape or form it takes that we can all identify with. When the horizon has darkened, being blindsided by an insensitive bastard's discarded gum on the sidewalk -- now on my shoe -- can feel like the end of the world. That, and I had to put my dog to sleep last week. Drama. Is. Drama. Is. Drama.

Monday, August 11, 2014 at 7:08 pm I read my first post about Robin Williams.  Within 10 minutes I somehow knew his death was not an accident.  I knew it.  I knew it with every fiber of my being because I saw me in his story.  I saw the masks he wore, though very different than my own.  My very first thought when I came to the realization of what had happened was, "how can I be expected to fight this battle when the genius Robin Williams couldn't fight it?" Selfish? Yes.  But it's what I thought -- it's where I am in my life.

This week has been difficult.  The people of the world lost in conflict and hate and chaos -- digging a hole the size of itself. There I am, standing on the side of the ever growing hole, ready to leap, but I don't. I -- in my weakened, fragile, heavy state find myself reaching into the hole to pull others out.  This is both my blessing and my curse. On a very instinctual level, I know it's something I have to do; and yet, the weight of it all is suffocating me.  Robin Williams leapt into the hole.  Will his leap pull some others out?  Will it cause others to leap with him?  Will it cause me to leap with him?

The conversation has been started, but it will fade away like everything else that is hard -- and nothing will have been resolved. How do we begin shrinking the hole, thereby reducing the amount of souls it sucks in? Why is it that I have reached the bottom of this piece without once using the words suicide or mental illness? Both words have impacted my life -- so many lives for way too long and yet, stigma is still attached to them making it laborious to even softly utter them. The Band-aid was an ingenious invention -- but we, as a whole have got to stop slapping them on a broken society and look for ways to mend and heal what is killing us... what is killing me.   My soul's instinct is to build a bridge of unity for the world -- and yet, here I am falling apart.  Ironic.  Yes. In order to help others I have to help myself, I know this... and yet... I feel lost.

Occupation

Her big girl panties heaved
out the window,
twirling her dress: spinning heads
          as she passes
          flashing smiles.
The chess board
collecting dust
in the corner of her room.

out to lunch

chewing the curd
to a liquid where it's swallowed--
becoming absorbed

Burned

Like a cool bath, the burning
sand cradles her soul
the scorching sun caresses
her skin, as the sting
from careless words fades
into a rock hard memory and
the last tear splashes
into a wake.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Stone

an open heart bleeds
waiting for all to hear--
in the other room,
the stereo blast.

Facetiousness

I wrote this for one of my projects for my creative writing class.  I had writer's block for most of the day... but pulled it out in the end...  and--grateful for a little help from my friends!!!!

Facetiousness

With a summons in hand
the flood appeared in a fit of piss and rage.

It found me in my bottom floor flat,
following the map I drew in my prayers last night.

With the force of a million hands,
the flood pushed this and grabbed that.
It lunged –
reaching for my neck
wringing like a scolding mother
in a climactic scene.

Its breath smelled like a garden after a gentle rain--
My body went limp as half a million hands
held my waist in a lover’s embrace.

The other half million
shoved my shit around like boys in a locker room--
like “Brick the Bully,” that roaring flood of torment
who, every damn day at recess,
reminded me how far I was from any safe harbor.

Giving the flood my last breath,
I rolled over and hit the snooze button.

Uncertainty always has gotten the best of me.

Futile

I could never race a Nascar;
Like thoughts, speeding
around in semi-circles
with no way out
frantic
and a fiery
crash when the tiniest
of things goes awry..

--------------------

like us
on the day before
our lips
never met

She Was Hope

When darkness swallows

the sunny memories

of day, 

hope bares to

its nakedness

hiding within the

abandoned whisper

just beyond the shadows;

leaving no trace

she ever was.

Spare Me

Spare, like rooms
and change and tired tires
are not bad things;
But personally,
I would kindly prefer
to be spared
from the suffering
of the sparer.

Deteriorating Conditions

the clouds hanging
low, their blanket of regret
embracing me.
they are thick but dry,
blocking the light
leaving all in its wake
dark and cold.
in straits, I shiver
allowing the darkness
to swallow me

whole.

Hard Stuff

I'm repeating this as new, cause it's.... relevant again.

The spirits hold me

when it hurts to see,

Drowning

is what I feel

when I’ve gotten a raw deal.

It

doesn’t really matter much

cause there’s no such

thing as having it

All.

The spirits know

when it’s time for me to go

Away.

Broken

The knuckles rubbed raw

from the sandpaper walls,

punched! in the face

on a route to escape

from the lever

pulled and engaged, forever

on the very same day

the rule, always to obey,

broken

with words that never should've been spoken;

guaranteed never to be, again.

By The Way

The highway moves fast, inside
the unending swoosh sound
of the people moving on
with their lives,
   passing by
this ol' clunker,
propelling this ol' soul
from place to place; only
ready to collapse at any moment:
unless, the guard rail
jumps out of the way.

A Part Without The Why

 

 

a gift lost

is still a gift

even if

it hurts like hell!

 

 

 

 

----and the weeper weeps----

for evermore.

Indigestion

The day before I died, the air

smelled like stale bread.

 

My eyes dripped and drained

as the words once heard, silenced

by the fear of confessions made,

too soon,

after the wine and bread were

swallowed and absorbed; leaving a bad

taste to linger for eternity

from the acid of

love soured.